CAP 14 CAP 3 - Part 7 - Flavor Ability Discussion

[TheStarRapper]

I´d like to say that there is something disconcerting about a fire type that is inherently punished in sun.

To go by Gamefreak standards: every other Dry Skin Pokemon is given another option besides Dry Skin (although yes, they are not particularly viable, they still give the option to run those mons outside of one specific niche, rain).

To go by Smogon's standards: Like my teachers in high school used to say, AP stands for Answer the Prompt. So, Can we Answer the Prompt? Let me refer to the first sentence, where we are tasked with "creat[ing] a Pokemon who's typing, while normally considered poor defensively and/or offensively, becomes a strong selling point of the Pokemon itself via help from an ability, stats, and/or movepool". I will specifically consider CAP3's poison typing in this argument, though a 1.5x boost to fire moves in sun is also one of the strong selling points of a fire type. Poison typing's saving grace is the ability to absorb toxic spikes, a skill particularly useful to sun teams. So what I am saying is, I agree, let's not give this 'mon an ability which makes it inherently more useful in sun, but at the same time, lets reward those who wish to use the poison typing to its advantage.

If CAP3 is not punished simply by being alive on a sun team, then when placed on a designated sun team, it becomes a failsafe against rain teams (while handily absorbing toxic spikes), meaning that CAP3's original niche becomes expanded to other scenarios, not simply replaced. In summary, to take away the opportunities for a boosted fire stab and poison absorbency in sunlight from a Fire/Poison mon is directly against "creat[ing] a Pokemon who's typing, while normally considered poor defensively and/or offensively, becomes a strong selling point". Thanks for listening, and you stay classy, Smogdiego.

 

[Cretacerus]

Flavor ability was chosen in view of something like drought, but that doesn't mean there mustn't be any competitive value at all.

The abilities suggested here don't even come close to drought's power, and the few advantages they get are way not enough to treaten dry skin's monopol. Allowing Cap3 to function in sun without losing life isn't anything dramatic.

I like the abilities Liquid Ooze and Poison Point very well, as they fit the design perfectly, and while their effects are neglectable competitively, it is highly satisfying, when they occur now and then.

 

[Red Riddler]

Hustle

CAP3's abysmal Attack stat makes Physical moves pointless, and the Accuracy drop doesn't affect Special moves. The reason I suggest it as flavor is because the direct Japanese translation is Enthusiasm. I got the idea when looking through Mos' supporting art that, for a lava lamp cone snail, CAP3 seems pretty enthusiastic.

 

[XcRunner]

I'm going to agree with what a lot of others have said. Illuminate very much goes along with the concept as well as sticky hold. Both of which have very little/no competitive merit

 

[Asylum_Rhapsody]

If it creates any significant niche at all next to Dry Skin, it's no longer just flavour.

If this Pokemon ends up at all desiring to use an ability like Illuminate over Dry Skin just so that it can not take damage in the sun, then what that points to is a problem with our stat spread and move pool, and I think that we should be open to wanting to find that out if it turns out to be true. Think of it as a test of the concept. If Illuminate can ruin it, we've done something wrong that we need to know about.

 

[jas61292]

The Toxicroak example actually really highlights the misconception that I think people are having with my suggestion. While Anticipation and Poison Touch are practically not worth using on Toxicroak with respect to Dry Skin, the fact that these variants of Toxicroak are not hurt by the sun makes them significant enough.Automatically, when you compare Dry Skin to Anticipation and Poison Touch, you are gauging their usual (usually negligible) positive effects, PLUS the lack of disadvantages compared to Dry Skin - competitively relevant decisions.

This is where I disagree. How the hell is Anticipation Toxicroak siginificant? Without Dry Skin it is outclassed 100% by like 12 different guys in 12 different ways. There is absolutely no reason to use it in OU, and if you are doing so you are using a sub optimal team. I don't see any reason why we should disallow this.

With CAP 3, it's even worse because it also gains an advantage just from being in the sun. By saying "it's outclassed by Heatran" you're already forced to entertain the idea as a niche, even if you reject it.

And I also don't see the relevancy in this. So what? I look at it and say, "hmmm... maybe it could have a niche. Wait, on second thought, Heatran exists, so nope, it has no niche." So uhh.... what is wrong with this? Not only does it have no niche with a useless ability, but even if it did, it would not be "significant", so it wouldn't matter regardless.

Honestly, your position seems to me based entirely on misconception. Where did we decide that we don't want it to be used in sun? When did we decide that not having the negatives of Dry Skin was bad? All we really decided is that we would rather have a useless ability than Drought or Regenerator. As Deck said, we do not need something totally useless, just something significantly inferior to Dry Skin.

That being said, Slow Start is not a bad idea. It could make sense, and it is kinda amusing. Though I still prefer Illuminate.

 

[DetroitLolcat]

Guys, things like Download, Hydration, and Suction Cups are competitively viable...

I think Illuminate is the way to go here. Look at the snail, it's shell is a freakin' lava lamp! Since this is a purely flavor step in the development of the Pokemon, the only criteria that we need to consider is if it looks good on the Pokemon and won't get any usage over Dry Skin.

I don't think there's a need to go overboard with the post length, so I'll leave it at that. Lava lamp=illuminate.

Also since snails are sticky then Sticky Hold is cool too :D

 

[Mario With Lasers]

For purely flavorful reasons, I find Stall a better option than Slow Start. Signature ability for a legendary being given to a pokémon that doesn't even look like it would have a "slow start" in the sense of the ability (CAP3 sure can "get it going" better than Regigigas...) versus an ability with pretty much the same effect and more fitting (imo) for a snail...

There's no competitive gain from Soak + Toxic since you're giving CAP3 a free shot or two (and it disappears when you switch out, I think).

Your typing resets if you switch out, but any status conditions persist. So, CAP3 would keep its Poison status.

 

[Flarephoenix332]

I support two choices:

Poison Heal
This is sweet, sweet irony. Poison Heal is an amazing ability that combines health recovery with status immunity (since you can't be burned if Poisoned). But on a Poison Pokemon, it's a funny joke. Much more funny as Guts Flareon (since Burn was the most common activator of Guts). Sure, Soak + Toxic works, but if you have Soak, you're a water-type and hitting it with STAB Water for SE damage is probably much more important. There's no competitive gain from Soak + Toxic since you're giving CAP3 a free shot or two (and it disappears when you switch out, I think).

the other is No More Abilities
While I understand where Cape's coming from, I'm coming from the side of "why have more abilities?" Dry Skin is great, we've voted no more competitive abilities, so... why? It'd be ground breaking for a CAP to get only one ability.

 

[bugmaniacbob]

Here are a bunch of abilities that I think make flavour sense and aren't overly powerful:

Clear Body
Cute Charm
Damp
Heatproof
Klutz
Magma Armour
Oblivious
Shell Armour
Slow Start
Stall
Sticky Hold
Weak Armour

Of these, the ones that make the most flavour sense are probably Shell Armour, Magma Armour, and Weak Armour, if we're going the armour route. If not, then Clear Body and Damp would be my favourites, as I think they go rather well with the design.

Also a special mention to Slow Start, of course.

 

[SunnyE]

What about Cute Charm?

It fits flavor-wise and it sure would be a nice change from Flame Body which most fire types get.

It will help Capmon survive longer if it triggers, giveing it the chance to throw in another boosting move or finish someone off.

We also dont have to worry about it outclassing Dry Skin in any way, since not only is Attract the weakest status move there is, its also dependant on gender, makeing it useless 50% of the time.

Was JUST about to say that....

 

[erisia]

Honey Gather is so cute, as Lavalusk can just gather Honey from trees with its pseudopods and store it in its lamp for safe keeping. <3 I don't expect it to be considered seriously, but I'd love a fan-art for this. :D

Flame Body is cool and makes a lot of sense practically as well... if a Pokemon accidentally breaks the lava lamp with a contact attack, it's going to get Burned.

 

[Dogfish44]

I'm thinking that with the giant shell, an interesting set of abilities to consider are Battle Armour and Shell Armour. It's practical for a mollusk being attacked to defend itself with it's shell.

Illuminate and Cute Charm are both mentioned and also smart.

 

[FireArrow]

I think filter would be a fun secondary ability. I don't think changing CAP3's earth weakness from 4x to 3x (and 2x to 1.5x for all its other weaknesses) is going to be a big game changer. That being said, it might have some use if CAP wants to be on a sun team.

Honestly, I came up with filter via Flavor, not use... (which is kind of odd, considering things like clear body and suction cups make more sense flavor-wise.)

 

[Scoopapa]

Hustle!

Keep the dream of a Coil set alive! With 252 EV's and Hustle, we still only reach like 250 atk. This would let us run gimmicky coil sets while allowing a sun neutral ability otherwise.

 

[Weebos]

I like Hustle a lot, seems like the definition of a NCA.

I'm also an Illuminate fan.

 

[Seven Eagles]

Suction Cups

Guys it's a snail, snails attach to things. THAT'S THE POINT OF BEING A SNAIL. They chill out and are hard to take off of things.

 

[tea_and_blues]

Liquid Ooze strikes me as near perfect. Another one I'd like to suggest is Damp - it's basically useless, but it's perfect as a flavour ability given the other option is Dry Skin (it'd be similar to Paras).

Another obvious candidate, flavour-wise, has to be Illuminate. Because it's a lamp. :P So I'm agreed on that one.

Edit: Tangled Feet could fit as well, depending on its original Japanese application.

 

[capefeather]

Yeah, I get that Deck Knight has stated that he doesn't mind having a non-competitive ability even if it's competitive "by proxy". In fact, he probably put that in because I was talking about it on IRC prior to this thread. Still, it's worth slating. This really answers jas61292's response, too, since we'll know for sure whether the population wanted an ability that could be even remotely an alternative to Dry Skin or not. You're absolutely right that the voters didn't really choose whether to have an alternate ability or not, even with their rejection of Regenerator.

I will, however, continue to prefer no ability, or maybe Stall as Mario With Lasers suggested. The way I view flavour stages is that they should have as little impact on the competitive aspects of the project as possible. IMO, CAP 3 should not be significantly different whether it actually had art / sprites / dex entry / flavour ability or it was just represented as a question mark on simulators with no flavour attached. It's nonsensical to me, then, to justify an alternate ability to test its effect on the metagame. "No Competitive Ability" could also easily mean "we don't want it to be used in sun" or "not having the negatives of Dry Skin was bad", precisely because Dry Skin is supposed to define CAP 3 competitively.

It's true that voters may have actually voted NCA for a myriad of other reasons. It's true that NCA itself doesn't have a completely agreed-upon definition. It's probable that "No Second Ability, Period" should have been slated for the Secondary Ability Polls, because it's silly to me that this is being decided in a FLAVOUR STAGE. All these reasons (especially the last one) are why I'm even comfortable with entertaining alternate abilities in this stage. What's done is done, and it's something to consider in the event that a future CAP project deals with a similar ability.

 

[samtheman]

I'm really liking Cute Charm, Sticky Hold, and Shell Armor as flavor abilities. I don't think that either are particularly game-breaking.

I don't agree so much with Damp, at least not in conjunction with Dry Skin. How can something with dry skin be damp?

Another potential option in the veil of Poison Heal would be Flare Boost, which boosts special attack 50% if burned. Since CAP can't be burned, it would be pretty useless.

Edit: Pickup could also be interesting, considering that it would only have an effect if CAP wasn't holding an item and the opponent consumed a gem or berry.

 

[Deck Knight]

I'm still going to slate NFA, I just don't think "performs like a Fire-type Normally does in Sun" is a significant niche when it requires CAP3 to run with Ninetales and duplicate weaknesses. CAP3 is also arguably one of the least suitable Pokemon to run in a Sun team alongside Ninetales considering its huge weakness to Earthquake, a move that many Sun Sweepers readily utilize.I still predict that Balloon CAP3 will see significant use, but I'm not really seeing the comparative value even in something like Suction Cups.

Sun teams currently don't run a Baton Passer, and even if they did, there's nothing with both Growth and Baton Pass legally, so CAP3 is SOL Even if somehow it gets these boosts, then somehow Nitro Charges 3 times so it can outrun Venusaur or whatever. In short, such that its niche exists, it's to support a playstyle it's generally unsuited to because it brings little that is unique or relevant to the table (absorbs Toxic Spikes? So does Venusaur), while it duplicates the weaknesses of the team as a whole.

In fact Dry Skin CAP3 is probably more relevant even with Dry Skin damage in Sun simply for the fact that while it sucks to lose the HP each turn, CAP3's playstyle isn't stall, it's targeted offense. Toxicroak has no business ever being Sun because all it means for Toxicroak is a shot in the head to its Rain Stall strategy. CAP3 on the other hand is still a pivot against strong water attacks in sun (say, Azumarill Aqua Jet trying to finish Ninetales off? It happens to resist all of Amumarill's most common attacks) and as sucky as it is to lose the HP, the tradeoff is still boosted Fire STAB.

So while I can sympathize with the sentiment, "doesn't take 1/8th damage in Sun or 1.25x more damage from already resisted Fire attacks" is significantly different competitively, it ignores "Fire-type that shits on Bulky Waters like it's its job, especially in Rain" being a much more attractive and otherwise non-existent niche, one the doesn't even necessarily go away in Sun (for Movepool reasons not expounded on here). Arcanine and Darmanitan already have the former niche, and they're both a lot scarier in Sun because of Speed/Offense.

As far as a slate, things I like so far:

No Flavor Ability
Illuminate
Liquid Ooze
Magma Armor
Poison Heal
Suction Cups
Tangled Feet

I don't really see the point in not having a more expanded slate here, this is for fun basically.

 

[Mari]

What about Blaze? Blaze is actual considered to be a bad ability, but it enables CAP3 to be a nice Salac sweeper - however this has no effect to Heatran. Torrent is very similar and focuses on the hitting with water moves in sun or in rain (for more offensive variants without healing in rain and Water healing ability, but with a higher staying power in other weather), but it looks a little weird because Torrent is properly only given Water Pokémon. If CAP3 had Mud Bomb / Earth Power it doesn't really need water moves in sun - only in rain Scald, Muddy Water or Surf can be used properly. My other suggestion is Sticky Hold, because it prevents tricking CAP3's Baloon into a Choice Scarf and knocking-off all other items - however it doesn't protect against bursting Baloon with Fake Out or other physical moves. All those abilities are considered to be worse than Dry Skin, but they are able to cover some niches of this Pokémon - and they all fit perfectly into its typing.

 

[conway]

I think filter would be a fun secondary ability. I don't think changing CAP3's earth weakness from 4x to 3x (and 2x to 1.5x for all its other weaknesses) is going to be a big game changer. That being said, it might have some use if CAP wants to be on a sun team.

Honestly, I came up with filter via Flavor, not use... (which is kind of odd, considering things like clear body and suction cups make more sense flavor-wise.)

I had the exact same idea about filter.

 

[Stratos]

an ability i see being fun would be Weak Armor! I mean lava lamp? that's just asking to break open, and it makes sense to speed up without that monstrosity on your back

this is flavor, i refuse to give competitive justification lol

 

[Mari]

an ability i see being fun would be Weak Armor! I mean lava lamp? that's just asking to break open, and it makes sense to speed up without that monstrosity on your back

this is flavor, i refuse to give competitive justification lol

Weak Armor sounds really nice. Imagine your opponent wants to Fake Out your Baloon - he should think twice - maybe your speed is increased then =) Revenge of the snail =)